How to Make Simple Cheese from Dry Powdered Milk

for those of you who are hardcore Preppers let me just warn you ahead of time today's video is not super important on that spectrum it's more toward the homesteading side of things however in my opinion it's pretty important that we know some of these simple things that we might take for granted if we're so used to getting cheeses off of our grocery store shelves but have never had to learn how it's made stay tuned because in the next few minutes I'm going to show you how to make this simple white paneer cheese two different ways with fresh ingredients that you might have on hand but when those are not available how to make it out of powdered milk and an ingredients that might be just on your shelf it's extremely valuable for using up those supplies you've got so stay with us [Music] I'll tell you this right now I've had a hard time waiting for us to do this video because I just want to eat the cheese that I already made as the example it's so delicious I've already taken several nibbles of it so I can't wait for us to finish just so I can eat more cheese without you watching me today we're making sort of a cross between cream cheese and feta cheese this kind of would be called-up paneer cheese I think for those of you who know them better than I do I'm not a cheese expert so if you ask a bunch of questions I probably am NOT the one that will have the correct answers but I do know how to make some simple cheeses and this is the first one we're going to make there will be other days in the future where we cover mozzarella cheese and things like that the neat thing about this simple white cheese that we're going to make though is that it can be made with fresh ingredients or even with your dry ingredients that you have on yourself so we're going to show you how to make it both ways Lord willing today also I want to say this we're going to be making in future videos a pizza in our Dutch oven well with the simple bread that you put at the bottom and then to have cheese that you could put on that imagine if you haven't had cheese in a long time how amazing that tastes so being able to make everything homemade in your Dutch oven including even the cheese that goes on your pizza you're going to be so proud of yourself also the noodles that you've saved many of us have saved lasagna noodles and spaghetti noodles and things like that in our pantry just because they store so well but do you have the ingredients to make the rest of that lasagna when it comes time well this is the perfect cheese that goes in that so in the future if you wanted to get elaborate you could even make it in your Dutch oven or regular oven if you've got electricity but this is a wonderful cheese for that alright so let me just tell you up front what I do know about it ideally you want not ultra pasteurized milk so the fresher the better if you've got something right out of the cow or the goat or the sheep that is what you want if you only have store-bought milk that's okay but you probably want to get whole milk you can see I've got organ Nicolle milk this is ultra pasteurized because when I went to the grocery store today they did not have one single bit of non ultra pasteurized milk and that's why it comes in handy to be part of like a farmers co-op where you can get fresh milk that's that's good to use for that you can also make it with half and half whole milk half-and-half here's goat's milk this is powdered goat's milk but you could make it with fresh or powdered goat's milk and I loved that the this they don't make low fat they make it whole milk which is wonderful you could also make this with evaporated milk which is wonderful and even though that's fat-free it could still work for this recipe it make a slightly different variation but you can make this with cultured buttermilk and some of you have this powder in your pantry right now it lasts about five or six years on the shelf and so some of us have this you can make a cheese with that too and then there's also instant dry milk or powdered milk and I didn't even know it till this week the difference between powdered milk and dry instant dry milk incidentally the instant dry milk if you see if there it's a more fluffy full of air the little granules whereas powdered milk is more just like powder this has more air in it so it can cost probably they get more for their money when they sell it to us in this instant form because it fills up more space with its puffy air you can make it with instant or powdered milk either one will work fine and today we're going to be using an instant so I just want you to know you can use any of those different varieties but stay with us in the next couple minutes we're going to go ahead and make it two different ways I'm going to make it with half and half which is wonderful and I've gotten as organic as I can get for that and we're going to make it with instant dry milk I want you to see the process it's almost identical for both ways and I want us to see kind of the slight difference in the end product but they're both super simple so here we go here are the ingredients you're going to need for our specific recipe today very very simple but you're going to want milk first of all and you can make it with half-and-half you could make it with nonfat milk or 2% some people make it with wholemeal just remember the more cream in it the creamier and yummier that cheese is going to be in the end also some people use half whole milk and half heavy cream which would be even creamier than this so keep that in mind you can also make it with instant dry milk which is the other way we're making it today same exact recipe but with dry milk and this is nonfat instant just plain old dry milk flakes okay but then secondly you're going to need your version of what you have on hand some sort of acid to make this work and so my favorite personally is lime juice this organic key lime juice just somehow to me tastes wonderful but any of these are going to work I also can do fresh squeezed lemon or homemade apple apple cider vinegar now it doesn't have to be homemade you may not have watched our video if you've got regular apple cider vinegar with the mother that's great to use as well but since I have on hand the homemade vinegar that I've made before it makes a great cheese for that acid that is needed to actually separate the cheese curds from the whey so literally those are virtually all you need unless you like a little salt at the end and you can make this savory or sweet so once we get it all complete that's when you might add something like a little bit of honey or salt or berries to it or chives like I've got fresh chives that I can add to some of mine so that all comes at the end and kind of extracurricular activity that you can do on your own after we've got this made so again all you really need is some sort of milk and some sort of acid that's easy enough okay now look at these other things though that it's just good to have on hand you don't have to have these in fact when I've made it before I just go by looks I know that I don't want my milk to boil but I do want to look for the little tiny bubbles that form around the edge of the pan but if you'd like to be very very specific you can get yourself one of these thermometers this is a candy thermometer and this is an instant thermometer that's often used in meats but it does a great job in liquids as well so if you want to get very specific the temperature you can go ahead and have one of these then you're going to want to have measuring spoons and a measuring cup that's easy enough right the last thing you'll want is some cheesecloth I say last thing sorry you'll want some cheesecloth to strain this out this is so so handy and a bowl to strain it into and you're going to want a saucepan that is not that coated kind inside with nonstick coating nope you just want a regular old wonderful I have a stainless steel Revere where pan that I use with a slotted spoon or some kind of spoon that has a little bit of strainer capability to it that's going to be easy to find probably somewhere in your kitchen and that's all we need so let's go ahead and get started I'm going to do this right over the stove so come with me over here and we'll make this happen so this is super simple I'm going to take and pour this whole quart of half-and-half into this pot again this is not coated with nonstick I want a one a regular stainless steel pot I fill it up and I'm going to just set it at about medium just a hint below medium for mine you don't want this to come to a boil that would not be good alright to make the same exact thing with powdered milk we're gonna want one cup of the powdered instant powdered milk give or take a little bit you can see I've fudged a little over the limit there that's fine though but you're going to put one cup to three cups of water so here I'll just pour this in and I will measure out three cups worth of water and and this is just rough estimates so don't worry if you get it just a little over or a little under but we're gonna stir all that in together there's one two it's nice when the water is kind of lukewarm not too cold and not too warm it's going to mix in with that powdered milk just a little bit better and so that it doesn't get all clumpy but if you've got a whisk nearby you can use that or that slotted spoon that you'll use later you might notice a little bit of bubbling going on in the powdered milk version and that's okay don't be deceived that doesn't mean it's time to make it into cheese just yet that is one of the tell-tale signs we'll see later when it's almost boiling but not quite and the wonderful little ring of bubbles forms on either one of these forms around the edges we know hey it's time to go ahead and culture it with some acid and get it to separate the curds from the whey but for right now we're just going to make sure this is nice and well incorporated milk and I'm gonna turn it almost to medium just a hint below medium and let it warm on up you want it to warm slowly not too fast and you're going to want to stir these occasionally just to make sure there's nothing attaching to the bottom of the pan or any kind of scalding going on you're just watching them very close but they're both gonna be almost the identical process we'll just wait for these to warm up to about 140 to 180 degrees but really if you just watch you're gonna see that ring of bubbles and we know hey it's almost time so meet me back here in a few minutes and we'll show you what that looks like alright so I'm looking at both of these and it's so interesting they're both about 180 degrees this is the half-and-half and you can see the little tiny bubbles right around the edges very very delicate looking bubbles we don't want it to get up to 212 boiling point but we don't want it to get be too cool either so this is ready to go and then look over here at the one that was made with dry milk and you can see it's got lots of bubbles almost like when we first dirt it up with the stir stick I can't even remember what the name of that is when we first started with this it made bubbles about like that and they calmed down but now it's bubbled up again and this is also at 180 so the next step is simply to measure out one at a time one tablespoon of the acid so for us again we could use lemon juice or vinegar but we're going to use lime juice it works just as well you're going to turn the heat off on both of these and I'm going to just stir in slowly for about one full minute one tablespoon of lime juice and let's watch what happens there's one tablespoon there and one tablespoon here and now we're just going to stir that slowly in and we're waiting for the way to separate from the curds and so you're gonna see it look just a little bit different it may or may not on this first minute that we stir this in but then we'll add some more you'll see a slight difference in there it's kind of fluffy also it's interesting getting these both up to 180 this half-and-half none of it stuck to the bottom of the pan at all but I did notice that even though I stirred it plenty this over here the see how that's separating it's wonderful now over here I'm gonna go ahead and stir this up slowly I was gonna say when I got this up to 180 I did notice that there is just a little bit of the milk solids that have attached to the bottom of the pan so I'm not really trying to scrape those off I'm just kind of letting those be as they will be and going ahead and just stirring this for about 60 full seconds with that lime juice giving it a chance to do its thing where it's going to separate out and you'll see curds and whey actually separating out you can add up to three of these tablespoons one at a time so we've added one we'll stir it for a minute and then you'll add another one and if two is enough you don't need to add the third you just start going to add it until it has enough acid in there to do the sufficient job I'm seeing some separation yeah I can feel it definitely in there this one is a lot more kind of a gluey type mozzarella a type feel to the curds of this one where these are just fine little curds I'm gonna stir that with my wooden spoon over here oh yeah look at that again this is the half-and-half we're looking at see those curds separating already it's almost like a fine cottage cheese so far whew that's just what we want to see and it's wonderful the simple process of this is just in waiting for it to get almost to that 180 point then we add the lime juice so that it curdles and then we are going to let it rest for just a few minutes and then strain it in the cheesecloth and get all the way separated from the curd and then you have your cheese it's that simple so we'll give this a minute more and I'm going to put one more tablespoon in that I've got a little more than enough in that all right let's stir it and see what we get just wanting a thorough curdling of it it's so interesting when we strain out the way you'll notice the way is almost clear not quite it's still milky looking but it's not white like what you see here yet so this one is ready I say we go ahead and take this cheese that's in the making from the dry milk we're going to literally just strain it through cheesecloth let the way completely get separated and in its own container and we're going to let that cheese kind of melt itself together in the cheesecloth and it will be ready for us to eat that simply so let's go ahead and do that now all right you can see we're ready to move this over and we're gonna just pour it I've got lined up for me a cheese cloth lined sieve and it'll catch the way down below so here we go let's see how this works should be about 3 cups of way that we get in there and about 1 cup of cheese here at the top alright see that curd wonderful looking kind of looks like cottage cheese but it's more gluey type in its in its consistency and we're gonna let it sit in that for about 10 minutes before we squeeze it out and we'll have our cheese it's literally that simple now don't be tempted to throw out this way because it's fantastic for all of your protein drinks your energy drinks that you might make for your family you can also help tenderize meat with it so if you put some meat in the crock pot throw some of this in there with it to tenderize the meat it's going to be wonderful and very nutritious full of probiotics for your family so it definitely keeps away and this cheese looks gorgeous already this is from the dry milk again we're doing that first is the dry milk and I'll show you the half-and-half version as soon as we finish it and you'll see be able to compare them but this is just absolutely wonderful all right now it's this guy's turn you see it's a totally different look this is the organic half-and-half that we used again we didn't have the non ultra pasteurized so we've just used what we could get at the grocery store I'm gonna go ahead and strain it and you're gonna see a huge difference between it and what we got out of the dry milk see if I can do this without making a mess we're gonna get a lot more cheese out of this one hold on I don't wanna mess this up we're gonna get a lot more cheese out of this one but in a lot less way this one will take a lot longer to strain because it's a smaller curd and it's gonna clog up those holes sort of in the weave of the cloth so we just have to be patient with it and give it some time and let it sit for about 15 minutes on this but slowly it will drain out and be the most wonderful cheese all right you be back here in a few minutes I'm gonna let this sit you can see how beautiful that is already but it's gonna look different and we'll squeeze it out in about 10 or 15 minutes and have beautiful cheese that you can see side by side and see the difference and the similarities so the half-and-half version is going to need to sit for just a few more minutes but this one that we made with the dry milk you can see it made more whey and less cheese and the cheese is more rubbery looking but nonetheless it's made cheese for us so now it's time to go ahead and just gather up all of the cheesecloth and I'm going to squeeze out every last bit of that water now keep in mind this I guess I should say the way the moisture is what I'm squeezing out you can squeeze it until you're blue in the face and get every bit of the last that out however you're gonna have a pretty dry cheese if you do it that way so keep that in mind as you're going that you do want just a little bit of moisture still left in there and I'm I'm pretty happy with how I've got it right now you can see very little moisture coming out let me show you this and we'll put it out here on the plate just see what we've got here it looks kind of like a little head of cauliflower I really did squeeze more moisture out than I needed to it's wonderful cheese and it is very moist but it's not stringing like mozzarella it's got curds to it still and if I had left it squeezed together a little bit more it would have kind of melted together a bit better and if I had left more moisture in it however this is scrumptious cheese especially eaten while it's warm like this I didn't put any salt in this and I could have but it does have just a hint of that lime flavor to it absolutely delicious I taste a little hint of the lime I think this would be great sweet or savory and I may add some salt and chives to it next it's chewy it's very fulfilling it does not have any taste of dry milk to it at all you've got to try this and this is one of the things that your family will love if you needed to make cheese for them from dry milk it's time for us to squeeze this one up and I just want to let you know that if you wanted cream cheese replacement very quickly and easily it wouldn't be authentic cream cheese but you could take this and many people do if you want it creamier you just add a smidgen of the cream right back in with this in a bowl and add your salt to it or whatever else you need to and then you can run it through a blender and it just makes a very very smooth cream cheese replacement you wouldn't really hardly know the difference at all especially after if it has set for about a day but for right now for our purposes I want you to see what it looks like just the way it is I'm going to go ahead and this out all the rest of the moisture that's in there and I could only fit about half of the cheese curd in this so you're gonna see them side by side as a comparison but you'll be amazed that this is only half of what you get from the real half-and-half I say real it's all real milk but you know what I'm saying it's much creamier but if you want it even creamier you can go ahead and add some you can add some cream right to it or a little bit of the way some people add the way back to it okay I'm going to open this up and immediately you'll notice it's a much smaller curd in there smells wonderful I'm going to put it on the plate next to this and let me just take a spoon here I want you to see the difference in this just so you can kind of get a sense for this texture so this one is very much like cream cheese or a small curd ricotta cheese see that now if I added cream with this and blended it up it would be absolutely smooth so you wouldn't get any of this little curd that you're seeing here but it's got a wonderful flavor to it very very creamy and we didn't squeeze quite as much moisture out of this one now going over here when I try to cut this with a spoon you'll notice it's too rubbery too this is really more of a similar going toward a mozzarella type if I had left a little bit of the moisture in it I really did squeeze too much out but you get the idea this is a much more rubbery cheese and yet they're both absolutely wonderful and could be used in different ways I could have worked harder at making this more this consistency but it's never going to be quite like the real half-and-half with all that nice fat that's really what made the difference I should have said earlier that you can get whole fat whole dry milk and that would have made an exceptional cheese a lot closer to this that we made with the half-and-half this is fantastic in its own right though so don't I'm not knocking it at all this is with no fat in it at all fantastic cheese it just doesn't look like much right here I wish I had a beautiful Photoshop 2 version of it so that you could could see what it's supposed to look like on Pinterest or something but this tastes amazing and I'm gonna go ahead and taste it off-camera I already know how wonderful this is I love it on everything from Pizza lasagna salads anything that you would use ricotta or cream cheese or any of these soft white cheeses on this is just exceptional and you made it yourself so go experiment in the kitchen have fun making this recipe tell me how it turns out and share this video with a friend who might enjoy making it with you till I see you on the next video god bless you and go out and be a blessing to someone today [Music] hey before you go I want to share with you just a quick word of Scripture this is verse eight out of Psalm 62 it says this trust in the Lord at all times o people pour out your heart before him God is a refuge for us now go be bold be courageous and seek God's wisdom and let's meet at the banquet table and swap adventure stories [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: PREPSTEADERS

Views: 353,425

Rating: 4.9247165 out of 5

Keywords: ricotta, cheese, paneer, powdered milk, cream cheese, Prepsteading, Homesteading, Survival, SHTF, Christa Swartz, Dry Milk Cheese

Id: 2oiowGAYxL4

Length: 26min 8sec (1568 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018